The children’s centre sat at the bottom of rickety steps descending from the end of the cul-de-sac. Dark brown brick set on an uneven weedy lawn – it was begrudgingly funded by the council. Everything was rationed and short-changed to the degree that visitors paid 50p for bitter, gritty coffee a
Read MoreAnd then it’s time. The vicar asks Rachael first, because she lives here, I suppose. Or because she’s organised the funeral, or goes to church, or because she looks and acts older even though she’s not. I don’t mind. Not really. She crouches down, like she’s making eye contact with a toddl
Read More‘When yer momma broke in, she didn’t realise there was a dog. It was dark out, wintertime. ’Bout three years back now. I was upstairs sleepin’, Ralph on the floor. She prob’ly thought the place was abandoned. We’re out in the butt crack a’ nowhere, wouldn’t be too strange.’ Elli
Read MoreHelen was standing by the milk with a list in one hand and a phone in the other. Julia had found the Almond Thins she came in for and was looking at yogurts – her daughter didn’t like peach or cherry, so she’d been scanning the multipacks for offending flavours. When she saw Helen, she quickly
Read MoreThey were sitting at Harold’s kitchen table under a harsh light. Outside, the London of September 1965 weighed grim and heavy, and rain pelted against the sitting room window. Phillip took a long drink of his scotch. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it would be easy enough to find another one.’ ‘
Read MoreHerbert Wubbins wasn’t the first actor to make his fortune with his face. He wouldn’t be the last. He was just one of the luckiest, and, obviously, one of the unluckiest. It was all down to practice. Muscle control. Hours of staring into a mirror and willing himself to look like that, or this
Read MoreBefore the drink got him – and shook him, and shook him – there was nobody west of the Mississippi that played the mouth harp like Billy Cooper. Friday nights at JJ’s Bar & Grill you couldn’t shift him from his stool, even if you’d wanted to. When Billy settled in his spot just to the
Read MoreIt didn’t start on social media. No, he couldn’t even blame the bubbly icons of validation on the phone, because it didn’t start there at all. It didn’t start at the pub or at work, and not even at the gym. It didn’t start at any one moment that Ryan could have put his finger on, were he i
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